2 posts tagged “obama”
Man, has the phrase "there are no guarantees" ever been more true?
Each day comes a new story about jobs that are going away - and that our comfortable lives are in a bit more in peril. From airline workers to barristas to health insurers.
Does this feeling of economic quicksand under our feet make us want to call out for help, stretch out our hand for the sure grip of someone with the power to pull us free, brush us off and send us on our way.
Are we gravitating to some hero to save the day?
Look at our presidential race. Sen Barack Obama, some believe, is an orator who will inspire us all to join hands and provide comfort and a boost to lagging economic fortunes. His speaking skills will urge us to find solutions to these perilous times and drive us to pick up our faltering brothers and sisters when the axe falls.
Yeah, right say the anti-Barack-istas. This is just a glib, slick-talking politician with a sharp-looking mug who will dazzle us enough so he gains enough votes to get into the White House. And, they'll pose, hasn't Obama proved that with his campaign finance pledge change-up.
We need a seasoned steady hand who has endured before and will help us endure now, say the backers of Sen. John McCain. He's a war hero, a POW who held up under years of confinement at the hands of the enemy. And, by God, say the McCain-ites, he's bucked his own party from time-to-time.
Really, counters the un-McCainiacs. He's embraced his party's platform like a mama hugs her college boy at Christmas break. And, if McCain were really secure in his military credentials, would he get so steamed when asked if they qualify him for the presidency.
And yet, the times they are a straining... and someone out there has got to right the wrongs?
If not those guys, what do we do?
Maybe we put out an ad in the paper... seek someone who can fill the bill and be the savior.
Just watch out for the stampede of applicants, looking for some kind of job.
Al Franken should take a seat with someone about the recent poll numbers that came out of Quinnipiac University.
It says that here in Minnesota, the man heading the Democratic ticket, Barack Obama, is up by 17 percentage points while Franken is losing his Minnesota Senate race by 10 percentage points.
Not so good. Franken needs counsel, someone who can relate.
He needs a coffee... maybe a lunch... perhaps an all-night bull session with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Why just nine years ago, it was Clinton trying to break into the Senate. Hillary soft-launched her bid n New York on the farm of then-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Of course,she had to move into the state. She held a listening tour. Then found out Rudy Giuliani would oppose her. Then she learned he wouldn't. Then she got a little-known congressman named Rick Lazio as her foil.
And through it all, Ms. Clinton had one undeniable fact - people knew her and had their minds made up about her. And there were those who were never, ever going to vote for her. Plenty.
No name-recognition building needed for a sitting First Lady. So she spent her considerable campaign money on two things: Maintaining her appeal to those who liked her ... and trying to attract the meager few who were still on the fence.
Clinton spent plenty of time in Upstate New York (read, places outside of the Big Apple). She embarked on trying to show she was no doctrinaire liberal hell-bent on socialized medicine and unwilling to hear from Republicans. No, she would get things done... and do it by working across the aisle.
And it wasn't going to be easy. People forget that when Giuliani was the Republican candidate it was a nip-and-tuck affair. And that was before Rudy became "America's Mayor." Clinton got a break when Giuliani stepped away and a second one when the clearly not-ready-for-prime-time Lazio entered the race.
She won by winning over the more conservative hearts of those outside on NYC, at least as many as could be swayed. It was a remake of sorts.
Franken has clear name recognition. And he clearly has many more people in his state who have made up their mind about him. The poll shows that nearly one in five Democrats jump the aisle and go with Republican Norm Coleman. Can they be swayed?
Franken better find out. He has money - just as Clinton did. What should he do with it. Clinton would probably tell him -- shore up the base. And then remake yourself to appeal to those on the fence.
Clinton could probably tell him what her strategy was to get the centrist, the fence-sitters -- talk about working to get things done. Coleman's already doing that, so Franken's climb might be steep.
And maybe the senator from New York could talk about learning from her own recent strategy misfire. In her 2008 presidential run, she rode the experience horse. And Clinton was overtaken by Obama's message of change by comity.
She could relate that recent lesson, if Al would just pull up a chair at a table with Hillary.
But hurry, Al, get on the former first lady's calendar, before it's too late.
